Prison inmates released to commit killings in Mexico

Top officials in Mexico have said that authorities at a prison released and armed several inmates to attack a group of people during a birthday celebration in a killing spree that left 17 dead. Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for Mexico's Interior Ministry said authorities allowed a group of inmates to leave the Cereso prison in Gomez Palacio, in Mexico's Durango state, in police vehicles to launch an attack on revelers at a farm in Torreon in the neighboring state of Coahuila. Four top Cereso Gomez Palacio prison workers - including the prison's director - were named as suspects in the investigation and police were able to trace the weapons used in the July 18, 2010 incident to other violent attacks, Najera said. Mexico's interior minister, Francisco Blake, said that the Gomez Palacio prison incident sheds light on Mexico's tenuous security and the "deteriorating state" of Mexico's local law enforcement.